


The End of Everything

by Elwyne



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3429176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elwyne/pseuds/Elwyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rory watches helplessly as his marriage comes apart before his eyes.</p><p>Pre-'Asylum of the Daleks'</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of Everything

"I'm sorry," the specialist told them. She closed the file on her desk, sympathetic but professional. There was nothing more she could do.

Rory laid his hand over Amy's. It felt like ice, and she quickly snatched it away. His heart ached for her. But the tests were conclusive: Amy could bear no more children, his or anyone else's.

"I recommend you take a few days," said the specialist. "You'll need some time to grieve before we discuss other options."

"What other options?" Amy snapped. "You just said there weren't any."

The specialist looked pained. "Many families have had success with egg donation and surrogacy."

Amy's face remained passive. Then she stood abruptly, knocking over her chair. Rory scrambled to his feet and righted it.

"Come on, Rory," said Amy. "We're done here." Turning on her heel she strode out of the office. Rory offered the specialist an apologetic shrug and hurried after her.

 

She was behind the wheel of the car by the time he caught up. The engine roared. Rory flung open the door and fell inside just in time. He fumbled with the seat belt as they lurched out of the parking space and screeched into the main road. Pedestrians leaped aside as they roared by. Amy dodged past an elderly driver moving at a snail's pace. She hit the accelerator as the traffic light turned yellow, racing through at the last instant. Horns honked behind them.

Back on the empty country road toward home, Rory caught his breath. He searched for words. Amy's jaw was set, her eyes fixed on the road. They gleamed. Rory swallowed nervously.

At home, Amy screeched to a stop along the pavement. She flung open her door and swept out, slamming it hard behind her. Rory scrambled after her, taking care that the doors were locked and the bumper wasn't sticking out too far into traffic.

He found Amy at the kitchen window, staring out into the winter garden. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, but she shook him off.

"Don't touch me."

"Just trying to help."

"Well don't." She turned on him in a rage, tears brimming in her eyes. "Why don't you just stay away from me!" Pushing past him she raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Rory listened to her footsteps in the upstairs hallway, the slamming of the bedroom door. He gazed at his reflection in the window.

"This isn't my fault," he told himself.

 

The bedroom door was locked. "Go away!" answered his first knock, and a thump of something thrown hard against the door answered the second. With a sigh Rory resigned himself to a night on the sofa.

In the morning he woke to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Scrambling to his feet he ran into the front hall just as she reached the door. She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back in an elastic. Stray strands tumbled every which way.

"Where are you going?" Rory called after her.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her look like ice. "Work," she said. "Photo shoot." The door slammed. The car roared to life and zoomed away. The neighbor's dog barked.

"I'll just take the bus then, shall I?" Rory sighed.

 

He arrived home miserable. An elderly patient had died, no less tragic for being expected, and he'd been unable to help an injured child. The tiny girl had thrashed and screamed as the doctors struggled to stop her bleeding; nothing he did seemed to reach her or calm her in any way, and in the end they'd had to sedate her. He couldn't shrug off her look of fear and betrayal.

Amy sat at the kitchen table, facing away. She lifted her head as he walked in, but didn't turn. "I think you should go somewhere else for a few days," she said.

Rory stopped in his tracks. "What?"

She threw a glance over her shoulder and quickly looked away again. Rory caught the gleam of tears. "You," she said. "Go."

"But why?" He moved around the table to look at her; she turned away. "Amy, what's wrong?"

"I just need some time. I need to be alone for a while. Is that too much to ask?"

"No, of course not, but Amy, please look at me."

She folded her arms across her chest and resolutely turned her back. Rory hung his head.

"Please," he said. "I love you. Let me help you."

Amy did not respond.

 

Rory packed a few things. He called a friend, procured a sofa for a night or two. With his bag on his shoulder he returned to the kitchen. Amy still sat there, chin in hands.

"Are you sure?" he asked her rigid back.

"Yes." There were tears in her voice. Rory turned to go.

"Call me," he said. He walked slowly to the front door, listening all the while for her to call him back. She never did.

 

She didn't answer her phone in the morning. She didn't answer it in the afternoon. She didn't answer late at night. Rory turned over a hundred possible messages in his head, but all he left was "Please call me," and "I love you." Two nights became three, then four. The friend needed his sofa back; Rory tried another friend, and then another, and finally, hurt and embarrassed, walked up his own front path and opened the door.

Amy was in the entryway pulling things out of her handbag. She looked up in alarm. Her mascara had smudged, blush and lipstick straying outside the lines, and her hair was falling gradually from an elaborate updo. She wore sweats and a single shoe. "What are you doing here?" she said accusingly.

Rory shrugged. "I live here."

Amy kicked off her shoe and dropped her bag on the floor. "I said I needed some time."

"It's been eight days. You won't return my calls. You won't tell me why you've kicked me out, or what you plan to do. I don't know what to think. You're my best friend, all I want in the world, and if you won't speak to me, what am I supposed to do?"

Amy turned away, her eyes bright with tears. "I think we should get a divorce."

Rory's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I can't do this now." Her voice was almost a shriek. "I can't think. I need you to go." She scooped her bag up from the floor and ran up the stairs. The bedroom door slammed. Rory stared after her open-mouthed. Finally he turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind him. Standing on his own front walk, his own car parked haphazardly in the street, he took his phone from his pocket and called the one number he hadn't tried yet.

"Hello?"

"Dad," said Rory, tears streaming down his face. "Can I have my old room for a few nights?"

 

He left a message every day, though he knew she was deleting them. "I love you," he told her over and over again. "I want to help. Please let me come home." Every night he slept with the phone beside his head, though it never ever rang. Brian saw him off every morning. It was like being in school again: riding the bus back and forth, lunch in the cafeteria, dinner alone with his dad. Rory walked through his life with a part of him missing.

"Why don't you try that friend of hers?" Brian asked one evening.

Rory looked up in surprise. He'd been sitting at the table, willing his phone to ring. He'd thought he was alone. He stared at Brian, almost forgetting for a moment why he was there at all.

"What?" he managed finally.

"That friend of Amy's. That Doctor friend she used to go on about. She still talking to him?"

Rory's eyes dropped back to the silent phone. "I don't know," he said. Was that it? he wondered. Was she off on her travels again, alone with the Doctor, leaving him behind?

And if she was, why couldn't he at least come home?

"Might give him a try," Brian shrugged. "Can't hurt." He ambled out of the room again, leaving Rory shaken.

In all his time with the Doctor, he'd never managed to get his phone number.

 

Weeks passed in a daze for Rory. He took to walking by the house at night, to see which lights were on. Once he saw her in the bedroom window, and shrank back into the shadows. It wouldn't do to have her catch him stalking. 

He tried to gather the courage to knock, but never quite managed.

"I went by the house today," he told her in a message he was sure she'd never hear. "I just want to know you're all right, it hasn't burned down or anything. Please call me."

Finally, nearly a month after the fateful appointment with the specialist, Amy sent a text.

"Meet me tomorrow," she said. "I have papers for you to sign."

"That's it, then?" he texted back. "I never had a chance?"

There was no reply.


End file.
